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New York University will host “Between Hope and History: When Disaster Strikes,” a day-long symposium reflecting on recent and continuing calamities, both man-made and natural, on Saturday, March 13, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., at NYU’s Cantor Film Center (36 East 8th Street/between University Place and Greene Street). The event, co-sponsored by the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, is free and open to the public. For a complete schedule of sessions, visit the website. For more information, call 212.998.2101. Admission is on a first-come, first-served basis. Subways: A, C, E, B, D, F, V (West 4th Street); 6 (Astor Place); N, R (8th Street-NYU).

Recent and continuing calamities, man-made and natural, continue to provoke profound and disturbing questions. At their root, almost all the issues are bound up in the vexing and complicated relationship of history to hope. “Between Hope and History: When Disaster Strikes” will bring together over a dozen writers, thinkers, and activists who have reflected deeply about the strange dialectic between suffering and solidarity.

David Rieff, a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and the author of eight books, including Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West and A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis, will deliver the keynote address (2 p.m.). Other sessions include: New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch, author of The Ballad of Abu Ghraib and We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families; Francine Prose, a contributing editor at Harper’s and the author, most recently, of Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife; Lewis Lapham, editor of Lapham's Quarterly and the author of, among other books, Waiting for the Barbarians, Theater of War, and Pretensions to Empire; Bard College President Leon Botstein; Jonathan Schell, journalist and author of The Fate of the Earth, The Village of Ben Suc, and The Unconquerable World, among other books; and Laura Secor, a journalist who covered the conflicts in Serbia and Kosovo and is currently working on a book about Iran.

Editor’s Note:The Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK) brings theoretically serious scholarship to bear on major public issues. Located at NYU, it nurtures collaboration among social researchers in New York and around the world. It builds bridges between university-based researchers and organizations pursuing practical action. It supports communication between researchers and broader publics. And it examines transformations in the public sphere, social science, and the university as a social institution as these change the conditions for public knowledge. Further information available at /.

The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU was established in 1976 by founding director Richard Sennett as a forum for promoting the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals, politicians, diplomats, writers, journalists, musicians, painters, and other artists in New York City—and between all of them and the city. It currently comprises approximately 220 Fellows. The NYIH typically holds luncheon-lectures for Institute Fellows every Friday of the academic year. In addition to these events the NYIH organizes a variety of seminars, conferences, discussions, readings and performances that are free and open to the public. For further information, please visit the website, or contact nyih.info@nyu.edu or 212.998.2101.